rell

It was funny. Because of that age discrimination lawsuit Iowa wanted to do some PR, so it made a video and paraded this 60 year old student. The director was expecting him to say how everyone at Iowa loves old people, but he says something like "It is like Vegas. What happens there stays, so they were friendly when I was student, but I never spoke to any classmate after graduation." You could see the shock in the director's face. I'm surprised she still put the video on the website.

It is illegal to discriminate against applicants for being old. But two years ago, in Hunter's open house, the professor didn't know this, and he said they favor minds young enough to mold. Also, Iowa got sued a few years ago by an old guy who was rejected. The lawsuit revealed that the admission rate for people 40+ was lower than for younger people. So some people believe that MFAs are discriminating against old people, but at least in Fiction the general consensus is the discrimination is with people 37+. Poets tend to go to MFA school shortly after ugrad. It is not clear if this is because schools are discriminating or because that is just poets tend to apply younger than fiction people.

If a school has already accepted any other person, it is near certain you were rejected. The only exception is Iowa which strings out its acceptances. There is probably about one seat left for Iowa to give out, so you have 1/50 (2%) of the chance you started with. The schools that have not given one acceptance yet like Brown and UVA are still possibilities. I don't know what your hurry is. There is no advantage to getting an MFA real young. Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein at 19, but most people get rejected when they apply before 25. There is only so much you could have read so far. This is not how the schools see it. They say they are losing money on each fully funded student. They think they are teaching writing and have no interest in rewarding anyone.